Saturday, September 5, 2015

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor is pushing back against more calls for the
court to increase its scrutiny of the state’s guardianship system, the same system that Ohio’s
attorney general said is “crying out for reform.”

O’Connor said on Thursday that the scrutiny should instead come from county probate judges.

O’Connor made headlines last week after blasting
TheVindicator newspaper of Youngstown for requesting in an editorial that she appoint someone
to investigate Mahoning County Probate Court and its former judge, Mark Belinky.

Belinky, who resigned from the bench last year, has been convicted of tampering with records.
TheVindicator reported that he has admitted to investigators to stealing from wards for whom
he was guardian, altering Probate Court records to hide those thefts and creating false
records.

“You’re asking me to investigate criminal behavior, and I have no authority to do that,”
O'Connor said in response to the paper’s request. “You’re giving the public the impression that the
Supreme Court will be the investigators, judge, jury and executioner. That is a misconception the
public has about the role of the court.”

Advocates and lawyers said that while the court does have the power to handle complaints, it
cannot insert itself into a criminal investigation of a judge because it might have to rule on the
matter later.

“I would agree with Justice O’Connor in (that) the court can’t do that,” said Susan Wasserman, a
lawyer and one of Ohio’s two master guardians. “But there is also a need for further protection of
wards, and that can come from elsewhere.”

The Supreme Court does have investigatory tools at its disposal, such as its disciplinary
counsel. The counsel investigates complaints and allegations of wrongdoing against judges and
lawyers and can revoke or suspend their licenses.

Wasserman said legislators in states such as California have created a statewide Professional
Fiduciaries Bureau that licenses and regulates conservators, guardians, trustees and other agents
who control the assets of another person.

Wasserman said county prosecutors should handle criminal investigations of probate courts.

Belinky’s actions are similar to those of Paul S. Kormanik, a former attorney in Franklin County
who last month pleaded guilty to stealing from four of his wards and tampering with records. He
will be sentenced in October.

Action by the court is something the public, elected leaders and advocates demanded after a
five-day
Dispatch series, “Unguarded,” that detailed a broken guardianship system administered by
county probate courts. The system controls the lives of more than 65,000 Ohioans deemed incompetent
to care for themselves.

The lack of safeguards, base-level recordkeeping and inaction by guardians and judges subjected
thousands of wards to physical, verbal and financial abuse.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he was “appalled” by the actions of guardians and called
for reforms. DeWine’s office has since created a handbook to guide guardians.

During her condemnation of
TheVindicator’s call for a Supreme Court investigation, O’Connor asked rhetorically “Why just
stop at Belinky?”

“Why doesn’t the court, under your scenario, (investigate) every judge I get an anecdotal tidbit
about?” she said. “When would it stop?”

The
Dispatch investigation also uncovered that a committee formed by the Ohio Supreme Court
spent eight years trying to come up with new, stricter rules to fix holes in the probate system
that led to abuse.

The court enacted those standards this year, mandating that probate courts for all 88 counties
implement new training, monitoring and background checks. Guardians also must meet with their wards
every three months.

The new standards fell short of enacting new guidelines that would better protect wards from
financial exploitation, theft and losing their cherished possessions. The rules don’t protect wards
from unscrupulous guardians such as Belinky.

O’Connor said that the new rules, if enforced properly by the courts and followed by guardians,
will protect wards from most wrongdoing.

“If courts can’t enforce these rules because they are overwhelmed and underfunded, then that is
a legislative issue and there needs to be discussion of more funding,” she said. “This shouldn’t be
about trying to tar the probate courts or the (Supreme) Court — judges are trying to do the best
they can.”

O’Connor said she was unfamiliar with the fiduciary board in California and could not comment on
its merits.

Michael Kirkman, director of the nonprofit Disability Rights Ohio, said he agrees O’Connor
shouldn’t insert the court into a criminal matter it might have to rule on later.

“But it does point out there might be a level of oversight lacking in the probate courts,” he
said. “I think the new rules are a baseline and that’s important. You’re dealing with a system that
hasn’t been well regulated for a number of years.”

LEMSON - U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan spoke Wednesday about the toll that
Alzheimer’s disease took on his father before he died earlier this year.

“I
watched my father become more and more aggressive due to the
Alzheimer’s disease,” Duncan said during a U.S. Senate Special Committee
on Aging field hearing at Clemson University’s Strom Thurmond
Institute.

Duncan’s father, John Duncan, died April 14 of
complications from the disease, which is a progressive, irreversible
neurological disorder that primarily affects people over 65. The
Republican from Laurens also recounted how his father’s illness created
difficulties for his mother.

“My mom struggled with not having a
power of attorney to access the funds that were going to be critical to
take care of my father,” Duncan said.

More than 5 million
Americans have Alzheimer’s disease. Duncan said that number is expected
to rise by 40 percent in the next decade.

“In South Carolina,
81,000 people are stricken with the illness. By 2025, the number will
explode to 120,000 people,” Duncan said. “As South Carolinians, we must
confront this growing wave today before it consumes our friends and
loved ones tomorrow.”

The committee’s chairman, Republican U.S.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, discussed the financial implications of
Alzheimer’s disease during Wednesday session.

“In addition to the
suffering that Alzheimer’s causes, it costs the United States more than
$226 billion annually.” Collins said.

She added that Medicare and
Medicaid pay 68 percent of that overall cost, which is expected to grow
to $1.1 trillion per year by 2050.

Although federal spending on
Alzheimer’s disease research is expected to increase from about $600
million annually to nearly $1 billion next year, Collins said that total
is still too low.

“Clearly Alzheimer’s research funding is disproportionately low compared to its human and economic toll,” she said.

U.S.
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from Charleston who hosted Wednesday’s
hearing, said Alzheimer’s disease and other aging-related health
problems are a key issue in South Carolina.

“Currently 15 percent of our residents are over the age of 65,” Scott said.

More
than 21 percent of Oconee County’s residents are 65 or older, said
Martine LaBerge, executive director of Clemson’s Biomedical Engineering
Innovation Campus in Greenville.

LaBerge and an official from the
Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston outlined initiatives
currently underway in aging-related health research.

Wayne Roper,
president of SCBIO, ticked off a number of private-sector life science
ventures that his organization has helped get started in the state,
including a company working to develop a blood test to detect
Alzheimer’s disease before the first symptoms appear.

The panel of
speakers at the hearing included Anderson resident Jerry Welch, a
retired minister who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2007, and
his wife, Nancy.

“It is really difficult. It is a hard life,”
Nancy Welch said. “There is very little support for the caregiver and
also for the patient.”

She said she is more fortunate than many caregivers because her husband takes part in a respite group two days each week.

Jerry Welch said the group helps him deal with the isolation associated with his disease.

“When
you get Alzheimer’s, you look around and all of the sudden your friends
are gone, your job is gone. It is amazing,” he said. “Your car is gone,
your freedom is gone. You are a prisoner.”

Duncan attended Wednesday’s hearing on what would have been his father’s 78th birthday.

In January 2013, 80-year-old Esther Brown
was found lying in her bed at a Pennsylvania nursing home with blood
covering her hands and her pillowcase.

A nurse’s aide at the home reported that
one of her co-workers had hit Esther and then had thrown a can of
shaving cream in her face, striking the elderly woman above the eye. The
incident was reported to the police, and Esther died several months
later.

Her family sued the nursing home,
alleging negligence and battery. But before the case could proceed to
trial, the judge had to rule on whether the family had the right to file
such a lawsuit. When Esther was admitted to the facility in 2011, she
and her daughter signed a contract that required her, and her family, to
submit any quality-of-care complaints to an arbitrator rather than to a
judge or jury.

Late last year, Judge Jeffrey Sprecher
upheld the family’s right to sue, finding the arbitration agreement
“unconscionable” because it was presented to Brown at emotionally
difficult time; consisted of long, confusing passages; improperly
portrayed the deal as beneficial to all parties; and included a
confidentiality provision that Sprecher said was “designed to bury all
proof of bad things that may be alleged to occur in a nursing home.”

The sad reality is that these types of
arbitration agreements are fairly common now among nursing homes, and
they are often upheld by the courts. Prospective residents, who may be
in the midst of a health care crisis, are asked to forfeit their right
to sue as a condition of admission. As the judge in the Esther Brown
case ruled, these binding arbitration agreements are sometimes “forced
down the throat” of residents.

As Sprecher pointed out, these agreements
also attempt to “inject fear in the patient by suggesting that a court
action takes so much longer than arbitration, so that unless you select
arbitration, the patient may die before his court case could be
finished.”

At first glance, arbitration might sound
like a reasonable, effective way to address complaints without resorting
to litigation. The problem is that through litigation, complainants
have the ability to use the discovery process to procure documents that
speak to patterns of abuse or neglect. They can also subpoena witnesses
for depositions, and secure sworn testimony as to the facts of the case.
And all of that is handled through a public proceeding before a judge
or a jury of one’s peers.

Many of the arbitration agreements
restrict a complainant’s access to records, as well as the number of
depositions and witnesses. Some place limits on how much a party can
recover in damages.

The federal government could easily bar
these types of mandatory agreements as a condition of a home’s
participation in the Medicaid program — but it has repeatedly refused to
do so. In fact, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
is considering major changes in nursing home regulations, but under the
proposed new rules, homes will only be required to “explain” arbitration
agreements to residents.

Of course, many individuals are placed in
nursing homes precisely because their cognitive abilities are greatly
diminished. How many of them are in a position to understand the legal
rights they are forfeiting by signing these agreements?

Fortunately, CMS says it is still
considering whether it should simply prohibit binding arbitration
agreements altogether, noting that residents who depend on nursing homes
for urgently needed care may feel pressured to sign the contracts even
when they’re not required as a condition of admission.

It’s time for CMS to ban arbitration
agreements in nursing homes. If care facilities feel that’s an intrusion
on their right to dictate the terms of admission, they’re free to bow
out of the Medicaid program and accept only private-pay residents.

But as long as public money is paying for
the care provided in these homes, the regulation of these facilities
should be designed to protect the public and not to appease the
industry.

Voice your opinion

CMS is accepting public comments through
Sept. 14 on the proposed new nursing home regulations. To voice your
opinion, go to regulations.gov, and enter “CMS-3260-P,” with the
quotation marks, in the search engine. That will direct you to a link to
the proposed regulations, labeled as Medicare and Medicaid Programs:
Reform of Requirements for Long-Term Care Facilities. Through that link,
you can submit your written comments.

Friday, September 4, 2015

A man tasked with helping an elderly couple instead used their trust
to drain their savings as part of a multi-million dollar fraud scheme.

William
Price admitted he stole $125,000 from one elderly couple he met as a
caseworker for Atlantic County Adult Protective Services, according to
the office of acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman.

Price was indicted with five other people accused of defrauding more than a dozen clients of $3.8 million.

The
57-year-old Linwood man pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree theft by
deception, according to a release from Hoffman’s office. Under Price’s
plea agreement, the state will recommend a sentence of five years in
prison, and Price will have to repay the $125,000 he stole. He’s
scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18.

Price worked with Jan Van Holt
at Adult Protective Services where in 2006, he befriended the elderly
couple and recruited them as clients for Van Holt, Sondra Steen, and
Barbara Lieberman. The trio was accused with stealing more than $800,000
from the couple, the release said. Price received $125,000 of the
stolen money.

“Price callously betrayed the trust and friendship
of an elderly couple to enrich himself,” Hoffman said in the release.
“As a social worker, he should have been all about helping them, but
instead he set them up to have their savings stolen by him and his
co-defendants.” (Continue Reading)

Former Hurstville deputy mayor and dentist Andrew Istephan engaged in
the "deliberate, callous and systematic exploitation" of elderly people
by performing unnecessary surgery for extra money.

Now Istephan has pleaded guilty to further assault charges relating to major dental procedures on Sydney nursing home residents.

In
the Downing Centre District Court on Wednesday, Istephan pleaded guilty
to three charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Prosecutors accepted those pleas and dropped four other charges against him.

Istephan, a former Liberal councillor, was convicted of five assault
charges at trial in 2013, but a jury could not agree on a verdict for
the seven remaining counts. He was due to face re-trial on those charges
this month.

At Istephan's trial, the jury heard he began filing
down patients' teeth within minutes of meeting them at nursing homes in
the inner-west in 2011.

Some of the procedures were not consented to and, in some cases, were not necessary.

He was contracted by a company called Elderlink, which provided dental and other services to elderly people

The
then 34-year-old was sentenced to a two-year intensive correction
order, with Judge David Frearson saying Istephan had engaged in the
"deliberate, callous and systematic exploitation of the residents with
the view of financial reward".

Motivated by greed, Istephan had
been "arrogantly dismissive" of the fundamental human right for bodily
integrity, the judge said.

"The frail and elderly have a right to be treated with dignity and respect," he said.

"It's wholly reprehensible to exploit the elderly for financial gain."

PERRY -- A Centerville woman was indicted Tuesday on 18 counts of exploitation of an elderly man three years ago.

Cheri Eileene Cox, 54, also was indicted on 14 counts of financial transaction card fraud and one count of theft.

She
is accused of transferring funds out of the man’s credit union account
to her own, convincing him to change his will for her benefit, using the
man’s checks and debit card, paying off her own credit card with his
money and cashing several of his bonds.

Also, in the same
indictment, William M. Cox, 58, of Centerville, was indicted on one
count of theft and two counts of exploitation of the same man.

William
Cox is accused of accepting a transfer of the man’s money by Cheri Cox
to his credit union account, of using the man’s debit card and paying
off a credit card with the man’s money.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Marcy & Michael Dudeck lived in Nevada. When Mr. Dudeck died in March of 2006, Heidi Pascal, the Dudeck’s daughter in California, asked her brother, Lance, to move from San Diego and take care of their mother. Lance moved into his parent’s home with his girlfriend, Marissa. Several months later Marcy’s daughter, Heidi, received a letter from her brother’s girlfriend stating Lance was beating her and she had witnessed Lance striking his mother. The letter went on to say the brother was making meth in the garage. Lance tested positive for meth by a county facility appointed by the Las Vegas Family court in September of 2006, which resulted in the mother being removed from the home. Due to these circumstances created by Lance Dudeck, a guardianship was established in Nevada for Marcy Dudeck.

In September and October of 2006 Heidi and her husband, Charles Pascal, made visits to Nevada and found Marcy to be living in horrible conditions at a senior home called Chancellor Gardens. She had lost weight, had no toilet paper and had not taken a bath for a long time. This facility had 108 State Board of Health violations and was almost shut down by the state. The Pascals appealed to the Nevada family court Commissioner Jon Norheim and were told that because the Pascals were not residents of Nevada they could not take Mrs. Dudeck out of Chancellor Gardens or the state even though Mrs. Dudeck wanted to come to California.

In November of 2006 after Commissioner Jon Norheim turned down their third request, The Pascals took Marcy to California and placed her in Sunrise Senior Assisted Living in Playa Del Rey. In 2007 the Nevada court granted Marcy Dudeck the right to stay in California and said she should remain at Sunrise for the rest of her life. The court appointed Jared E. Shafer, of Professional Fiduciary Services of Nevada, to act as her guardian, even though Marcy now resided in California.

One year past. Heidi and Charles received two calls from the IRS stating Marcy’s taxes had not been paid. Upon investigation the Pascals learned Jared E. Shafer had not only neglected to pay taxes but the bills from Marcy’s home in Nevada were not being paid. In addition, Jared E. Shafer had removed over $350,000 in fees from Marcy’s estate trust account even though he hadn’t performed any guardian services for Mrs. Dudeck, since the court order specifically stipulated Mrs. Dudeck must remain in California for the rest of her life. Based upon all of this information, the Pascals began a California conservatorship case to remove Jared E. Shafer as Marcy’s guardian. Exactly two days before an evidentiary hearing, which was to take place on August 6, 2009 in Los Angeles, Marcy E. Dudeck was kidnapped from Sunrise Senior Assisted Living in violation of an May 2007 Nevada court order which stated Mrs. Dudeck would remain in the California facility for the rest of her life. Witnesses heard her begging to not be taken away. Marcy was going to testify in court that she wanted her daughter, Heidi Pascal, to be the guardian of her person in California.

At the time Marcy was taken against her will, she was a beautiful and vibrant woman, youthful for her 91 years. She weighed 134 pounds, was very healthy, happy and active. She had a boy friend named Harold, went on field trips and took excursions with the group to see movies usually during the early afternoon. She had made many friends at Sunrise. Guardian Jared E. Shafer became extremely angry about Marcy’s field trips. He phoned the Pascals and told them he wouldn’t pay for the field trips. In fact, Mr. Shafer said he was going to put a stop to what he liked to call “field trip nonsense”. Marcy’s doctor said the trips were good for her. The Pascals paid for many of the trips for Marcy to insure she got to go on these outings.

The other victim of this story was Marcy’s boyfriend, Harold. After Marcy left his condition took a very bad turn and he died one month later. Harold’s daughter was very upset and said her father went into a funk after Marcy left and just didn’t want to do anything. Legally Mr. Shafer can’t be accused of Harold’s death, but morally, every human being has an orbit of influence. The things we do affect others around us. It would be hard to imagine the bad karma Mr. Shafer will experience when he crosses to the other side. Other lives associated with Mr. Shafer’s wards are also destroyed.

THE STATE OF LOUISIANA TO:
WILL CHAPMAN, PUBLISHER **PERSONALLY**
THE DAILY IBERIAN
…
YOU
ARE HEREBY COMMANDED, enjoined, and restrained, in the name of the
State of Louisiana and of the Civil District Court for the Parish of
Iberia, in accordance with a temporary restraining order, this day
issued in above entitled numbered cause from;

RESTRAINING WICK
COMMUNICAT[IONS] COMPANY D/B/A THE DAILY IBERIAN AND WWW.IBERIANET.COM
FROM PUBLISHING OR POSTING ON ITS WEBSITE ANY ARTICLE OR STORY IN WHICH
PLAINTIFF DAVID W. GRONER IS ACCUSED OF DISHONESTY, FRAUD OR DECEIT IN
CONNECTION WITH A LOUISIANA SUPREME COURT DECISION OR SIMILAR MATTER.

This all apparently stemmed from a reader comment on a Daily Iberian article that said,

I
read the paper where David Groner is representing Deputy Sanders Butler
in the sexual harassment. The only thing you need to know is that
Butler helped Groner in his failed bid for State Senator against Fred
Mills and Simone Champagne. That’s when the truth came out about Groner
having a reputation for engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud,
deceit and misrepresentation.

The
Office of Disciplinary Counsel (“ODC”) commenced an investigation into
allegations that respondent engaged in a conflict of interest and
engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or
misrepresentation. Prior to the filing of formal charges, respondent and
the ODC submitted a joint petition for consent discipline. Having
reviewed the petition,

IT IS ORDERED that the Petition for
Consent Discipline be accepted and that David W. Groner, Louisiana Bar
Roll number 6349, be and he hereby is suspended from the practice of law
for six months. This suspension shall be deferred in its entirety,
subject to respondent’s successful completion of a one-year period of
supervised probation governed by the terms and conditions set forth in
the Petition for Consent Discipline. The probationary period shall
commence from the date respondent, the ODC, and the probation monitor
execute a formal probation plan. Any failure of respondent to comply
with the conditions of probation, or any misconduct during the
probationary period, may be grounds for making the deferred suspension
executory, or imposing additional discipline, as appropriate.

Rule
8.4(c) states that a lawyer shall not engage in conduct involving
dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation. By issuing payment to
the [clients] with the notation “Full and Final Settlement” and
obtaining a Release Agreement containing a release for all claims
against [Groner], the actions of [Groner] suggest an attempt to settle
the [clients’] malpractice claims, without their being fully advised as
to the nature of the agreement and the potential ramifications
associated with their executing the agreement. At a minimum, there was a
misrepresentation as to the true nature of the January 18, 2007
transaction between the [clients], Ms. Defelice [Groner’s associate] and
David Groner, PLC.

You can decide for yourself
whether the comment on the New Iberian site was fair, based on the
disciplinary proceeding (read the whole joint memorandum, which is just
four pages long, for more context). But it’s clear that the order
barring a newspaper from publishing anything in which Mr. Groner was
“accused of dishonesty, fraud or deceit in connection with a Louisiana
Supreme Court decision” was unconstitutionally overbroad. That’s so
given the facts of this case. And it’s so, even setting aside these
facts, under the general principle that alleged defamation can’t be enjoined
at least until a full trial on the merits in which it’s proved that a
particular statement was false and defamatory (and maybe not even then).

In any event, the judge’s order led to a good deal of public commentary, both from the Daily Iberian and from other sources, such as Ken White (Popehat); and the Daily Iberian fought the order in court
(and I suspect would have fought in higher courts if necessary). And
yesterday Mr. Groner dismissed the case, which means the order has now
been vacated. Here is what he wrote to me over the weekend, in response
to an e-mail from me asking for his side of the story:

The
case will be dismissed Monday am. So by the time you write about it the
case will be over and the TRO lifted, by my own choice.

It has
been blown way out of proportion, which I admit is my own fault. I have
never been found guilty of fraud, dishonesty, or deceit so I asked them
not to publish anonymous posting to that effect. The end result is
classic Streisand effect, I made it worse by trying to correct it. I am
fishing at a camp in the marsh and have no access to backup or I would
send you the stipulation that imposed a sanction against me for a
technical violation considered misrepresentation. [Shortly afterwards,
Mr. Groner did send me the stipulation, which I quote and link to above.
—EV] Unfortunately for me the rule is to sanction actions of
dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation so the haters always pick
up on the fraud, dishonesty and deceit and ignore the stipulation that
led to the order which outlined a case for misrepresentation. For many
that is splitting hairs, but for me it meant a lot. I forgot that
because I am a lawyer it is open season and there are many that would
love nothing more than to see me crash and burn.

I have now realized that I cannot control what is said on the internet and will do my best to return to anonymity.

I’m glad that the order has now been dissolved, and that Barbra Streisand
continues to be doing her job. (To be sure, there is a bad version of
the Streisand effect, in which even quite legitimate libel lawsuits are
deterred by the worry that the publicity will only amplify the original
false accusation. But here, given the clear unconstitutionality of the
order, it seems to me that the Streisand effect has helped do good.)

UPDATE:
Embarrassing error — the first line of the post originally said the
judge’s name was Michael Thibodeaux, but that was the clerk of court.
The judge himself was Curtis Sigur, and I’ve updated the post
accordingly. My apologies to Mr. Thibodeaux, who was just doing his job.

RACINE COUNTY — 72-year-old Francis Riordon of Lake Geneva is accused
of posing as a bank examiner to bilk an elderly woman of money. Riordon
faces charges including theft and falsely acting as a public official.

According to the criminal complaint, the victim in this case told
police Riordon phoned her on August 7th “purporting to be a Bank
Examiner.” The victim told police her husband had recently passed away —
and she “received a call at home from a man who stated his name was
‘Mr. Bradley.'” Riordon allegedly told the victim “he was investigating a
problem with her checking account and that she would need to void a
check in the amount of $4,500, give the check to the bank teller,
withdraw the cash and turn over the cash to him, Mr. Bradley, who in
turn would be able to complete the investigation and return the money
later.”

The complaint indicates the victim did as she was requested — and met
“Mr. Bradley” at a grocery store parking lot where the exchange of
money occurred. The complaint says Riordon showed the victim “a badge
and other documents purported to be from the bank.” He then allegedly
took the money and left. The victim never saw Riordon again.

Investigators were able to determine the phone number used to contact
the victim — and use surveillance video to help identify Riordon. When
they showed up at his Lake Geneva home, they found the vehicle Riordon
used when he allegedly took the money from the victim. Officers also
found the cell phone that was used, the fake bank documents and a
“number of index cards with different individuals’ names.” Officials say
all of the individuals named on the cards were elderly women. Officers
also found a search of the victim’s husband’s online obituary from the
Racine Journal Times.

The complaint also indicates Riordon “attempted to contact 29 different elderly woman” on August 21st alone.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

One if the second most important cases in our county is this one.
Fighting for the right to be the guardian for her mother, Marise
London, Ms. Ferguson is in a holding pattern. For two years, she has
tried to be recognized by the court as her mother caretaker. She does
this by all indications at the will of her mother. No longer able to
care for herself and unable to make decisions due to dementia, Marise
signed a power of attorney prior to her current situation to her
daughter, Julie. Her son was named second in case Julie was not
available. But due to a criminal complaint against Marise’s other
daughter, the courts questioned Marise’s ability to be cognizant. They
brought in Lutheran Family Services to be the guardian instead. And
like a steel leg trap, the judicial system and our state’s guardianship
program became a hard to navigate maze for a daughter to maintain the
rights granted to her by her mother.

This past week, Judge Williams, appointed a monitor
to evaluate everyone involved in this case, including Lutheran Family
Services. Sitting in the courtroom was Republican Party Chair and State
House Candidate, Joe Gruters,Herald Tribune Reporter, Barbara Peters Smith, Attorney Jan Schneider, Artist Jack Dowd, and myself. Other noteworthy mention is Senator Nancy Detert
who is following this case closely and well. For it was this case that
has inspired her legislation on Guardianship not only this past
session, but also the upcoming one.

Sending Ms. Ferguson a message on Facebook, she writes:

“Way to go Julie! It’s been a long, stressful time for you and your
mom. Monday I am refilling our bill so we can bring some oversight,
regulation and clarity to these cases. Good for Judge Williams for
digging deeper to help the elderly.” – Senator Nancy Detert

As much as the attorneys for Lutheran Family Services were wondering
in court the other day, repeating over and over in their testimony, “Why
doesn’t Ms. Ferguson just file an appeal?” The members of the audience
are hoping that when the court appointed monitor interviews them, they
will make it obvious for the judge to make that happen.

BUTLER COUNTY — Becky
DeLong sat across from Shashi and Aruna Anandpura and asked the
question every parent dreads even thinking about: what happens to your
child if you die before they are raised?

For the Anandpura family, the unthinkable could become more complicated because their daughter, Parul, has autism.

“Let’s
say you two were in a car accident, the judge is the superior guardian
and so he would pull her file and read about her from the stuff you have
sent in. But that would be it,” DeLong explained to the Anandpura
family as they met at Safe Haven Farm in Madison Twp. The farm is home
to 16 adults with autism.

Changes at the state level now require
all court-appointed guardians — lawyers and other professionals as well
as family members and caregivers — be required to take training, whether
they’re caring for an elderly person with dementia or a young adult
with mental illness or developmental disabilities.

“The goal is to
provide uniformity and consistency to Ohio’s guardianship system by
providing clear guidance for best practices,” said Christy Tull,
director of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Judicial College.

The court
released the new minimum requirements in March, after years of study and
a 2014 Columbus Dispatch investigation that revealed how the state’s
patchwork of local rules had failed some of its most vulnerable
residents.

The meeting DeLong is having with the Anandpura family
is one of more than 1,000 that will happen across the county as part of a
program launched by Butler County Probate Judge Randy Rogers.

In
April, Rogers sent DeLong, his chief investigator, and a handful of
interns to meet face-to-face with all of Butler County’s 1,100 guardians
and their wards. DeLong has already met with about 550 people.

“I
want to know all of our people so that when the judge looks at that, if
that would ever happen, I want him to know who she is, so it’s not just
a case number, I want him to have a sense of who she is …” she told the
Anandpuras.

The Butler County program has received praise from the Ohio Supreme Court.

“That’s
quite an undertaking for them,” Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor said.
“It’s a good program. I commend the judge for doing that.”

Almost
half of the county’s guardianships are for people with developmental
disabilities, DeLong estimated, and the rest are for the mentally ill
and the elderly. She said there are times when establishing a
guardianship can be difficult.

“A lot of times they don’t want to
have a guardian, so some of our elderly folks think it’s crazy and they
are competent and they don’t need a guardian,” she said. “They get angry
about that, and who is it and how did that start and why are they doing
it. They get upset with all that.”

The county’s guardianship
program has been held up as a model for the state largely due to the
court’s partnership with LifeSpan, according to Rogers.

“Butler
County has been known for many, many years for its guardianship
program,” he said. “It is administered by LifeSpan, which covers about
200 of our 1,100 guardianships. It’s a model for the state.”

Lisa Fry, LifeSpan’s guardian manager, said she and her six guardians visit their charges monthly, which is crucial.

The new rules say guardians must have contact with their wards at least quarterly.

“We
meet with our clients every month and that does help with the rapport,”
Fry said. “We put supports around that client, we try to keep them in a
least restrictive environment and support them in the community or a
facility where they are living. We advocate for them and seeing them
every month is beneficial because over a period of time they get to know
us and know we are there to help them.”

There is another effort
going on regarding the guardianship world in Butler County at Miami
University’s Scripps Gerontology Center.

Rogers has forged a new
partnership with the center by offering its students internships. The
center is also in the throes of surveying all probate courts in the
state.

“We’re hoping to collect information about the number of
guardianship cases in Ohio and get kind of a picture of what the
guardians look like, get a picture of what the wards look like,”
research associate Heather Reece said. “We also want to see what the
challenges are and we are going to be looking for innovative programs
that we can highlight.”

The chief justice said probably the most
important piece of the new rules is the training. She said there could
be parents who have been caring for their children all their lives who
might wonder why they need to be trained.

If there is money
involved — from Social Security or the developmentally disabled person’s
job — there has to be accountability, O’Connor said.

“The
training is the key to the whole thing, to make the guardians understand
how important it is to be responsible and to follow the court rules
with regard to their ward,” she said. “Obviously when you are spending
money for your ward, sometimes it’s just a nominal amount that comes in
but sometimes it could be millions of dollars.”

Several California residents are suing financial advising
company Total Wealth Management over an alleged scheme to obtain funds
from its clients under false pretenses.

Albert Calderon, Laurence
Gleason, Inga Gleason and Susan Antonucci, among others in the class,
filed a class action complaint May 16, 2014, in the Superior Court of
California County of San Diego against Total Wealth Management and other
defendants in the class, alleging securities fraud, unfair competition,
breach of fiduciary duty, constructive trust, conversion and elder
abuse.

The complaint alleges that Total Wealth Management and its
affiliated companies artificially inflated portfolio values and
investors' risk of loss in order to pay themselves higher performance
fees.

Plaintiffs seeking to invest in their retirement first heard
about TWM's alleged scheme on a San Diego radio program the company
conducted.

TWM was also being investigated by the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission over charges of fraud, which the company did not
disclose to investors in the class, according to the complaint.

The
complaint states that the plaintiffs would not have invested with TWM
had they known the above facts. As a result, the plaintiffs suffered
direct financial loss.

The plaintiffs seek damages according to proof and punitive damages on the fraud claims.

They
are represented by Michael J. Aguirre and Maria C. Severson of Aguirre
& Severson LLP in San Diego, and by Charles S. LiMandri and Paul M.
Jonna of the Law Offices of Charles S. LiMandri APC in Rancho Santa Fe.

Superior Court of California County of San Diego case number: 3:15-cv-01632-BAS-NLS

"Hopefully these new standards will improve the level of service
provided to nursing home residents in New Jersey," said Jimenez
(D-Bergen/Passaic). "In turn, this will hopefully provide greater peace
of mind for both residents and their loved ones."

Under current regulations, the Department of Health requires nursing
homes to meet a minimum number of hours of direct care staff-to-resident
time per day.

"Mandating specific certified nursing assistant-to-resident ratios will
create more precise, enforceable standards," said Lagana. "Ultimately,
this will raise the bar for the standard of care throughout nursing
homes in New Jersey."

Under the bill, certified nursing assistant-to-resident ratios will be as follows:

1) one certified nursing assistant for every six residents on the day shift;
2) one certified nursing assistant for every nine residents on the evening shift; and
3) one certified nursing assistant for every 14 residents on the night shift.

"Seniors and their loved ones deserve the comfort of knowing that there
is a sufficient level of staff to tend to their needs," said Mukherji
(D-Hudson). "Hopefully this will minimize the chance for neglect and
improve the overall quality of life for aging residents."

The bill also sets forth a methodology for computing the appropriate
ratio, and provides that a nursing home that experiences an increase in
resident census is exempt from increasing the number of certified
nursing assistants for nine consecutive shifts.

Nothing in the bill would affect any other minimum staffing requirements
as may be mandated by the Commissioner of Health for nursing home staff
other than certified nursing assistants, and nothing in the bill would
prohibit a nursing home from establishing staffing levels above the
established minimum.

The legislation has been referred to the Assembly Human Services Committee.

They just may be the loneliest of the lonely
in our community. They have no family or friends, or at least none who
can care for them. They are unable to make important decisions for
themselves. They are indigent. And they live in nursing homes where no
one comes to visit.

They are adults who are wards of the Summit County Probate Court.

Concerned
about these folks, Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer created the Volunteer
Guardian Program, which pairs caring souls with those in need.

Imagine
being alone. Maybe you have a physical or mental health illness and no
one in your life who steps up to help you. Perhaps you’ve had a stroke
or are someone who is mentally challenged. There are many scenarios, and
the need for guardians is equally great.

“It’s a guardian’s job
to make sure that a person is getting the care that they need,”
explained Gizelle Jones, executive director of Jewish Family Service,
which was selected to implement the program that began last year.
“Nursing homes offer a variety of challenges so if you are not in decent
mental health and unable to advocate for yourself … you need someone to
help you.”

That’s where you come in. If you have been looking for
a volunteer opportunity to change someone’s life in a significant way,
this may be for you.

During a recent visit to Seasons Nursing and
Rehabilitation Center in Stow, guardians Lynn Spencer of Munroe Falls
and Jay Regallis of Wadsworth were visiting their new friends.

Jay,
whose paying job is in sales and marketing for Servpro and who has
volunteered helping the elderly in other ways, broke out in song. Odie
Zickefoose, 56, who lives at the home, enjoys reminiscing about the old
days, particularly chatting about songs from the ’60s and ’70s.

“And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire, the ring of fire,” Jay sang, to Odie’s delight.

A
few feet away, resident Margie Newell, 55, was chatting with Lynn, who
visits her about once a week. Sometimes they go to the park or the fair.
Margie has even met Lynn’s family.

“I would recommend it for
people who want to volunteer. It is a blessing spending time with
Margie,” said Lynn, the retired director of a nonprofit organization
that helped victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in the
Virgin Islands. “It works both ways — she gets something from me being
here and I get something. We are companions for each other and share
experiences together.”

As Lynn spoke, Margie grinned, adding, “I adopted her as my mom.”

Jennifer
Mesko-Kimmich is program director of volunteers. She makes certain that
the men and women who donate their time receive any help needed to do
the best jobs for their wards, who are thrilled to receive visits from
their guardians.

More people like Lynn and Jay will be needed.

“As
our population is aging, we have people who are having physical
problems … or the deterioration that comes with age,” explained Stormer.
“The need grows every year. Most of the time, we can find a family
member who is willing to take on the responsibility. But sometimes we
have family members who are not appropriate or unable to care. And
that’s why we turn to volunteers.

“We welcome anyone who has the
heart to do this,” she added. “The training is available; they don’t
have to have any prior experience.”

Volunteers must be 21 or
older, have their own transportation and visit their ward once a month. A
background check is done and volunteers must complete three hours of
court-mandated training. That’s not much to change someone’s life.

If you’ve been thinking of volunteering, please consider this opportunity to help the loneliest of the lonely.

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Mary
Rose is more than $100,000 in debt to attorneys since her 59-year-old
brother, Robert Nabity, reportedly placed their mother in the Omaha,
Neb., House of Hope locked Alzheimer's facility two and a half years
ago. “Even though my brother and his well-connected attorney are
violating state statutes and guardian responsibility guidelines there
have been no consequences, because the judge does nothing about it,”
said Rose, who works as a nurse in Grand Island, Neb.

Since she was separated from her 83-year-old mother,
the 43-year-old says she does not have an accurate accounting of her
family’s assets and belongings. “About $40,000 in bonds have been
redeemed, a life insurance policy was cashed in and a $20,000 policy was
signed over to a funeral home even though mother’s burial arrangements
were already paid for,” Rose says. “There’s more, but I don’t have an
inventory.”

That’s because Rose claims her brother has disclosed only inaccurate and incomplete financial information.

“Mother was happy living with me in my home until he kidnapped her in
2012,” Rose says. “She had given me medical power of attorney in 1998,
and now I have limited access to see her.”

Nabity through his
attorney Lisa Line declined to comment about the case PR12-1422, which
is venued in the Douglas County Courts.

“I
am allowed to visit my mother every Tuesday between 11:30 a.m. and 7:30
p.m., but I have to pay a monitor $50 an hour to supervise my visits
with her,” says Rose, who lives five hours away by car roundtrip. “This
is hard for my children, because they are in school until 4 p.m., so by
the time we get there, it’s 6:30 and then we have to drive back for
school the next morning.”

[A]ging parents often suffer the most when their adult family members are at war.

“My poor mother is locked up, isolated, drugged and kept away from
her family, friends and the outside community," Rose says. "There is no
medical research to back up or support that this is the best way to care
for the elderly."

One way to avoid disputes over inheritance or family wealth is by spelling out wishes in a trust document.

"In
addition to that, parents should make their intentions well known to
all children well in advance," said Reno Frazzitta , founder and
president of Secure My Funds, a retirement planning services firm.

To help families manage wealth, Merrill Lynch offers ten best practices, called Wealth Continuity and Family Unity.
“By implementing these best practices, a family can understand who has a
collaborative mindset and who may not want to participate,”
says Michael Liersch, head of behavior finance at Merrill Lynch Wealth
Management. “The key is to go into these discussions with a
nonjudgmental, open mind so that all perspectives can be heard, which
may facilitate the information flow needed to make the best decisions
possible.”

Among the practices are developing skillful communication, creating
accountability and establishing a collaborative advisory team.

“The practice of creating a collaborative advisory team would be most
related to the notion of helping a family member with a particular
dysfunction,” Liersch says. “Pulling in the right expert for advice and
guidance can help a family make the right decision for a loved one they
are concerned about.”Dysfunction among family members is often created by envy, jealousy and greed.

"The fires of sibling rivalry stoked with the flammable fuel of cash
are almost impossible to extinguish," Sugar says. "Sadly, when lawyers
become involved, it gets very ugly."

Monday, August 31, 2015

MEMPHIS, Aug. 28, 2015
– The patient who leaked shocking videos showing paralyzed veterans
left unattended at the Memphis VA says the only change since the video
is that the hospital is now retaliating against him.

Last week, CDN broke the news that paraplegic and quadriplegic veterans at the Memphis VA are left alone while nurses attend staff meetings.

Instead of rectifying a bad situation, hospital staff appears to have
taken punitive action against the source of the video. Staff placed the
patient, whose identity CDN is protecting for safety concerns, on bed
rest after they speculated he could be responsible for the video.
On bed rest, he is not allowed to move from his bed. “Before the
videos, I was able to get up for an hour or so,” he told CDN. “I don’t
understand why I can’t get up for an hour. It (moving around) helped
with my mental health and with my overall outlook, I was able to go
outside and get fresh air.”

The source noted, however, that there has been no change in terms of
leaving patients unattended during staff meetings, which take place
three times a day. “So far as I know it’s still the same thing. I’m in a
room where I can actually see the front desk from my room.”

Willie Logan, the Memphis VA’s press representative, told CDN in its last story that a nurse was always at the nurse’s station and patients only needed to push a button to reach a nurse.

The source disagrees. He noted, “It’s apparent from the video that
there is not somebody at the nurse’s station at all times. The room
where they have that meeting is not a patient’s room so I’m not sure if
they can hear the call.”

On the foxnews.com article, several commenters pointed out that a
quadriplegic, someone paralyzed from the neck down, isn’t able to push a
button.

A follow-up email to Logan on this issue was left unreturned, but the
patient said shortly after the email was sent, several nursing managers
who had never been in the ward before were working in the ward. “I’ve
seen people in here I’ve never seen before,” he said. “They’re flipping
beds and cleaning under mattresses and everything.”

The patient said his current care is indicative of the quality of
care at the Memphis VA for years. “The treatment was so bad that I made
up my mind not to come back,” he said of his experience four years ago.

Because of the severity of the injury, he said he was forced to get
treatment at the Memphis VA because he didn’t have proper insurance for
treatment outside the VA system.

Sean Higgins, the whistleblower who
brought these videos to the attention of CDN, said this case is a
microcosm of a bigger problem at the Memphis VA. “The situation in the
Memphis VA has been out of hand for quite some time. To care for those
who shall have borne the battle is clearly not the agenda at the Memphis
VA,” Higgins said in a text message to CDN. “We veterans see the
neglect from management that is filtered down to the staff that actually
cares for these veterans. We continue to see more of the same: deny,
delay, and hope you die before they have to pay.”

TOLEDO
- A former Cleveland-area attorney accused of hypnotizing women for his
sexual pleasure has been charged with kidnapping, sexual battery and
gross sexual imposition following an investigation that began last fall.

Michael Fine was taken into custody Friday afternoon and
charged with 27 counts before being released on bond, according to
sheriff's records.

Police in the northeast Ohio village of
Sheffield began investigating Fine after two women told investigators
they believed they'd been hypnotized after losing track of time and
being unable to recall meetings and phone calls with Fine. Police said
they later recorded Fine using explicit language while talking to the
women.

Fine's attorney, Robert Housel, said on Saturday that he was
surprised by some of the charges. He also said that Fine had been
undergoing medical treatment for quite a while.

Fine likely will be arraigned within the next week, Housel said.

Just
over a week ago, Fine, 58, agreed to permanently surrender his law
license, which means he no longer can practice law in the United States.

One
woman told authorities she thought Fine hypnotized her numerous times
on the phone and during meetings in his office and at conference rooms
at the Lorain County Justice Center. She said she hired Fine in February
2013 for a custody dispute.

The woman decided to record phone conversations with Fine.

According
to a motion filed by the Lorain County Bar Association, Fine used
sexually explicit language during the calls, which ended with Fine and
the woman discussing legal matters. She then took the recordings to
Sheffield Lake police. According to the motion, she told investigators
she didn't go to police earlier because she feared not being taken
seriously.

Police officers and investigators from the county
prosecutor's office wired the woman with video and audio recording
equipment for a meeting in Fine's office last November, the motion said.

Investigators said they entered the room when Fine began discussing sex
acts.

A second woman, who hired Fine in September to represent
her in a divorce, told investigators that Fine discussed relaxation and
meditation techniques during their first meeting and suspected that he
tried to hypnotize her. The same thing happened in their next three
meetings and afterward, according to the motion, the woman felt as if
she'd lost time.

The second woman went to Fine's former law firm in early November when she learned he had not filed any paperwork in her case.

She
told authorities that when she learned Fine was no longer with that
firm, she told an attorney about her suspicions. The attorney advised
her to contact authorities.

BY PENNY ARCADE, DANA DAVISON and MIKKI MAHER | A suffocating
and corrupt bureaucracy has grown up around social services for the
elderly. Guardians, social workers, financial managers and other
caregivers too often show a cavalier disregard for the welfare of their
charges. And don’t imagine for a moment that it is only lonely,
friendless, isolated denizens that become victims of abuse. If you are a
senior caught in this bureaucratic quagmire, even your best friends
can’t help you.

Consider the case of Kasoundra Kasoundra. This very
original New York Underground personality, now pushing 80, has been an
avant-garde artist for more than half a century. When she arrived in
Manhattan as a Midwestern college dropout in the early ’60s, she boldly
knocked on the doors of celebrities such as Hermione Gingold and Bob
Dylan simply to find out what made them tick.

Modeling at the Art Students League to earn her living,
Kasoundra inserted herself into the urban art underground, making
friends with its creative geniuses while she perfected her own
considerable talents as a witty collage artist. Brice Marden and Jonas
Mekas, among others, collected her artworks, and Maurice Gerodias,
founder of The Olympia Press, took her with him on trips to Europe.

Kasoundra hung out with the Alice’s Restaurant crowd at
the church in the Berkshires, and acted in Harry Smith’s “Mahagonny.”
Her poster of Harry looking at himself in his own eyeglasses is a
sought-after treasure.

Flash-forward to January 2011, when Kasoundra was
discovered lying on the floor of her kitchen and transported to Lenox
Hill Hospital by Adult Protective Services. Kasoundra’s boyfriend had
run off with her roommate, and despite her bad liver, Kasoundra had
consumed an entire quart of vodka.

When her friends finally located her
in the hospital, she was yellow with jaundice.

The physically feisty Kasoundra bounced back soon enough,
but she was transferred to the hospital’s psych ward because she
complained of depression. This proved to be a dangerous disclosure,
because from that moment forward, Kasoundra was never to enjoy her
freedom again.

A self-portrait collage by Kasoundra Kasoundra.

Although she has fought valiantly through three years of
court hearings with three successive judges, Kasoundra remains marooned
in a nursing home in New Rochelle with little hope of ever regaining her
liberty. How could this happen?

Kasoundra’s trials began with her
landlord. As she stayed in the psych ward month after month, her rent
fell increasingly behind, and the landlord sued for eviction. Kasoundra
paid him $2,000 as a gesture of good faith until she could return home
and get her affairs in order, but the landlord was not appeased and the
eviction proceeding continued.

Kasoundra had lived for 30 years in a rent-stabilized
apartment on the Upper East Side, and under SCRIE (Senior Citizen Rent
Increase Exemption) she paid $684 a month. With a modest renovation,
Kasoundra’s four-room apartment —particularly in view of the new Second
Ave. subway line — might easily fetch $3,500 per month in today’s
inflated real estate market. Such apartments have become valuable assets
to landlords, who often pay rent-stabilized tenants thousands of
dollars to move out.

Although the hospital helped Kasoundra acquire a pro bono
lawyer to stave off her eviction proceeding, the better course might
have been to help her set up an automated bill payment plan at her bank
so her rent could be paid on a timely basis.

Kasoundra’s next problem was that her medical condition,
hepatic encephalopathy, caused her liver function to wax and wane. This
condition (and/or the medication taken for it) can cause symptoms of
grogginess and occasional forgetfulness — side effects that dissipate
once the liver returns to normal and the medication is discontinued.

In the meantime, the psych ward social worker was
reluctant to send Kasoundra home to her apartment, a three-flight
walk-up. The staff considered that she might be better off living in
Lott House, an elegant, assisted-living facility in her neighborhood,
where she could occupy a studio apartment and have her meals served in
the spacious dining room with windows overlooking Central Park.
Kasoundra loved the park, and had once been a volunteer gardener there.

An appointment was made for a visit to Lott House, but
after Kasoundra’s initial interview, her social worker sat on the
application for months. No one helped Kasoundra apply for “Community
Medicaid,” which, in view of her meager Social Security income, would be
needed to pay for homecare services or for her residency at Lott House.
Instead, the hospital applied for and received a “hospital Medicaid”
payment for the hefty bill Kasoundra now owed the hospital.

As the year drew to a close, Kasoundra’s social worker,
who was about to retire, was under pressure to dispose of her cases.
Because Community Medicaid had not been set up, Kasoundra could neither
return home nor move into Lott House, and her social worker decided to
dispense with the problem by seeking a court-appointed guardian under
Article 81. For this purpose, Kasoundra was given the short form of the
R-Bans Mental Status Test, and the social worker said afterward that
Kasoundra had performed poorly “on one component of the test.”

On this flimsy basis, the hospital applied to the New York
State Supreme Court for a court-appointed guardian. Since Kasoundra had
been adopted and her adoptive parents had passed away, she had no one
who could intercede on her behalf or halt the impending termination of
her rights and ability to control her own destiny.

The first guardianship hearing took place
in December 2011. Although Kasoundra was never sent court papers (a
procedural violation), she asked one of her friends to inform the
judge’s clerk that she wanted a “trial by jury,” and that she did not
want the “court evaluator” to have access to her medical records, if the
evaluator was going to base a competency judgment on the results of the
paltry mental status test. Kasoundra was legally entitled to both of
these options, but her requests were ignored.

At the hearing, one of Kasoundra’s friends offered to
become her guardian, but the social worker spoke out against this
prospect, and the judge decided to appoint a professional guardianship
agency.

Ironically, just before the hearing took place,
Kasoundra’s latest liver test had come back “negative,” which meant that
her medication would be discontinued and her sporadic grogginess would
soon dissipate, which it subsequently did. But no doctor or social
worker from the hospital brought up the results of Kasoundra’s latest
liver test –– or its import –– at the hearing.

In her ruling, Judge Visitacion-Lewis stipulated that
Kasoundra should be returned home with appropriate homecare services
provided, or, if that proved too difficult because of the stairs,
Kasoundra should be placed in an assisted-living facility “in her
community.” (Since Lott House was the only such facility that accepted
Medicaid, it was not only the most desirable but also the only option.)
The judge also stipulated that the guardian should confer on all
important matters with Kasoundra and work closely with her friends to
insure that her needs were met. None of the judge’s directives were
followed.

Kasoundra’s third problem was her guardian, Judah Samet of
United Guardianship Services. Ignoring the judge’s orders, he promptly
whisked Kasoundra to a nursing home in New Rochelle — far from her
community and friends. Kasoundra was confined to a bed with a loud
buzzer that went off every time she tried to get out of bed. She
received no physical exercise, and soon her leg muscles began to
atrophy. Even after her friends discovered where she was, they were
unable to contact her because she had no working telephone. She remained
isolated and alone for months.

Finally one of her friends brought a psychiatrist to the
nursing home to evaluate Kasoundra. He gave her a routine mental status
test and determined that her cognitive functioning was normal. He saw no
reason why she should not live at home if she wished to do so. (Continue Reading)

Unintended ‘heirs’ might pounce.

You likely have money, property and other items of value that you
plan to leave to loved ones or charity. But do they know your plans?
It’s important that you tell them — and sooner rather than later. Why?

Because communication is one of several ways you can protect yourself
from an insidious, all-too-frequent crime that is both underreported
and underprosecuted, and which victimizes families of all social and
economic levels.

I’m talking about inheritance theft.

No matter how smart you are or how stable your family, no one’s
estate is entirely safe. Thieves are known to siphon assets from
healthy, highly educated people about as often as they do those of the
infirm and feeble-minded. And they get away with it because the thieves
usually know the victims — and know the victims won’t prosecute.

In other words, the thieves are likely to be members of your own
family. Inheritance theft can be hard to detect because thieves use
whispered lies, fraud, psychological manipulation and forgery — acts
hard to uncover and even harder to prove in court.

Some people never discover they were victimized or the thief
convinces them that no theft occurred. Other victims are ashamed to
reveal that a family member or close friend stole from them, and others
don’t report losses to avoid publicity.

There are two types of estate hijackers:

Family members. Some steal because they want revenge
after a lifetime of feeling neglected or abused; others feel compelled
because of drug addiction, their own marital or family needs or
financial strife; and some simply are greedy.

Outsiders. These include overly friendly strangers,
some of whom assist the elderly or infirm to gain their trust; club or
church friends; spouses from second marriages; caregivers or healthcare
workers; someone who constantly criticizes or tries to portray someone
as incompetent; anyone entrusted with handling another person’s money or financial affairs; anyone with a power of attorney; unethical
executors of wills or trustees of trusts; and salespeople pushing
financial products that are not in a client’s best interests.

How can you protect your estate and intended heirs from thieves and
interlopers? While nothing can make you invincible, here are four ways
you can help yourself and your parents avoid becoming victims of
inheritance theft:

1. Prepare an estate plan. Documenting your desires
for the disposition of your assets is the first step in preventing
people from claiming you made verbal promises to them. Hire an estate
attorney that you’ve vetted personally or who is referred to you by a
trusted source.

2. Choose a trusted friend or family member to serve as your executor and/or trustee.
And to help make sure he or she follows your instructions, distribute
copies of your will and trust documents to at least one other heir — and
preferably to all of them. If you feel uncomfortable letting others see
your plans, require your executor or trustee to retain the services of
an estate attorney (at your or your estate’s expense) to oversee
matters. Instruct that the attorney be paid on an hourly basis rather
than as a percent of the estate’s value. (Note: We don’t recommend that you name an attorney, bank or
trust company as executor or trustee because they typically charge
exorbitant fees, often as a percentage of the estate’s value. And they
can be difficult or even impossible to fire — leaving your heirs
helpless if they are unhappy with the costs or service.)

3. Keep all your legal and financial documents in a safe place, such as a safety deposit box or a fire-resistant home safe. Create digital backups.

4. If you make changes to your documents, inform all concerned. And that includes your independent, objective, fee-based financial advisor.

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NASGA

NASGA (National Association to STOP Guardian Abuse, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) public-interest, civil rights organization formed by victims of unlawful and abusive guardianships and conservatorships. We seek legislative reform of existing law and upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment and engaging in elder and family abuse.

Our mission is to promote the safety and well being of vulnerable persons subject to injury and damage in their person and property through unlawful and abusive guardianship and/or conservatorship proceedings; to end the growing violations of due process, civil and human rights; to work towards ultimate legislative reform of guardianship as presently practiced; upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment; and to be a support organization for victims and their families. We carry out our mission through research, outreach, education and advocacy; and going forward, by alliance with community interest, law reform, civil rights and other advocacy organizations.

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Comments and opinions posted to our Blog are our readers - not NASGA. We do not censor comments, and we welcome opposing views. We do reserve the right, however, to delete any submitted comment which contains foul or obscene language.

Please visit our website by clicking the link below for more information on how you can help stop guardianship / conservatorship abuse.